


Fight Until the Last, Fight Until Nothing Left

by FromThoughtsToInk



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, I Don't Even Know, Red Queen Week 2017, SO SAD, So yeah, The last one, Wasn't there a weird timeline where everything was the opposite, a little violence, but it's pretty gay, but nothing to squicky, hopefully someone likes it, it's a little sad too, not a lot of relationship stuff, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 14:44:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12534056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromThoughtsToInk/pseuds/FromThoughtsToInk
Summary: For Konako for Red Queen Week (2017)Prompt: Regina and Ruby fight alongside and losing a battle.Regina catches wind of a possible attack on the rebellion's base.





	Fight Until the Last, Fight Until Nothing Left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [konako](https://archiveofourown.org/users/konako/gifts).



> This is for Konako for Red Queen Week. I hope you enjoy.

The horns were heard and the war had been declared, maybe a year ago, six months, a week, a day. Regina didn’t know anymore. What had been a matter of daily survival had become one of hourly survival. She barely made it to her safehouse, only narrowly escaping the Queen’s guards earlier that day. Locking the door, she pressed herself against the wood and took the first clear, deep breath of the day.

“I thought you’d be more careful,” a voice said from the shadows. It was a guttural sound, like whoever said it was growling more than speaking.

Regina unsheathed her dagger, holding it reversed in her hand. “Show yourself.” She looked out into the darkness, kicking herself for not checking her defenses. “I’m armed.”

“I know,” the voice taunted. Yellow eyes flickered in the darkness. “That won’t help you.” There was a rustle of fabric and running feet. Something lunged at her, tackling her to the ground. Strong hands grabbed the knife from hers, pressing the tip into her neck. With every beat of her heart, she could feel her vein pulsing against the cold metal. There was a pause, a brief moment where Regina couldn’t tell how this was going to end, but of course it came to the same conclusion. “You have to be quicker than that, Regina.” Red got off her, throwing the knife with deadly force into the wall to Regina’s left. She offered her hand to the woman on the ground. “You can’t let your guard down, not for a moment.”

“So you tell me, all the time,” she muttered.

Red glared at her for a moment. “How many times do I have to tell you-”

“And how many times have I survived?”

They were at a standstill, watching each other for any sign of weakness. While Red did better, Regina was never one to back down. “You do realize what will happen when you die?”

“If, Red, if I die.”

_It’s when until you realize you have to pick your battles_ , she thought. “The resistance won’t have a fighting chance. You are the only thing keeping them together.”

Regina scowled, shaking her head. “I didn’t ask to be.” She just wanted be normal, as normal one could get being the daughter of a prince, as normal as one could get being married off to the king, as normal one could get accidently killing the man her step-daughter loved. She was young, foolish. Her husband had picked a man suitable to be his daughter’s groom, but Snow had loved another. Regina knew what that felt like. Daniel, sweet Daniel, lying dead on the floor, lying dead in her arms.

Red knew that too. Peter torn to pieces and his blood in her mouth, nothing left salvable, nothing left to mourn.

Regina had taken Daniel’s death is stride. It wasn’t Snow’s fault, she was a child unable to understand the lengths her soon-to-be grandmother would take to keep power, even if it meant crushing her heart.

But Snow, when she lost James there was no turning back. The sweet girl dead and gone, a murderer now in her stead.

“But I have a plan.” Regina began pulling out a map from her bag, spreading over a table. There was some unfamiliar handwriting in the margins.

“Where did you get this?” It was a map from Prince David’s general, the Leviathan, the man’s crest pressed into wax on the corner.

Regina shrugged. “I saw the general’s plumes in town to today.” Red hit her side, Regina wasn’t suppose to go into town at all. “I figured the benefit outweighed the risk.” She began to disarm, pulling the bow and quiver off her back, setting them on the table. “They used some sort of shorthand, but it look similiar enough to the kind my father’s men used.” She grabbed a scrap of paper from the shack’s meager kitchen and got a quill, scribbling her best guess as to what the code meant. “Dawn, Dark Forest, Shadow’s Peak, they’re going to hit one of our bases. Tomorrow.”

“Alright, we leave now, warn them.” Red grabbed the dagger out of the wall, handing it to Regina. “There’s a full moon tonight, I might have a chance to stop the attack before it happens.”

Glancing at the window, Regina gave Red a panicked look. “We don’t have much time.”

“Then stop talking and get ready.”

She was ready to remove her cloak, just waiting for her partner to give the word.

“You can't go," Regina said quietly. “They have something.”

“What do you mean?” Red pulled her cloak closer now.

The bandit bit her inner cheek. Her reconnaissance didn’t just produced a map, but some information. She motioned for Red to sit. The werewolf didn’t. Regina swallowed hard, unsure about how she was going to tell her. “At the camp, I saw something.” She took a shaky breath. “They have other children of the moon. They’re using them as weapons.” Another breath. "One of them was Quinn."

Red clenched her jaw. For years she had been searching for her pack after her mother died. She thought the hunters killed them all. “Take me there now.”

“He isn’t the same, Red.”

“I SAID TAKE ME THERE!”

Red never raised her voice, at least never in anger. Hearing her yell was jarring, almost alien. Regina shouldered her quiver, “Okay.”

~

They walked in utter silence, creepily so, no sound of the branches of leaves crackling under their feet. Under the pale moonlight, their breath went up in a smokey vapor. Regina shivered at the passing wind. Typically her furs and leathers would keep her warm but something felt entirely off. She stopped, and motioned for Red to do the same.

“Torches,” Red said. Her eyes were yellow now, her wolf wanting to come out. She sniffed the air. “They’re burning something.” She closed her eyes, nose flaring. “They’re burning flesh.”

The hood dropped, falling into a pool of crimson, and where Red once stood was now a massive wolf. She bolted, heading towards the enemy camp. It all happened too quickly, Regina wasn’t ready. “Red!” she screamed after her, her only friend. “RED!” She grabbed at the magic cloak, pulling it over herself.

She notched a bow into her arrom, following the fresh wolf track towards the base. She heard yelling, blades begin unsheathed, and a long deep howl. Without thinking, she released the taunt bow, an arrow flying into a the throat of a black knight. She pulled the arrow out, the man only making one last gurgling sound as she did. She put it back on her bow, ready to fire again. “Red!” she yelled out once more.

Towards the center of the camp she heard growling. She followed the sound, hopeing that once she found her friend they could retreat. The growling got louder, more intense, it wasn’t one wolf but two. She saw her Red, a large black figure one it’s hunches. In front of her a large grey wolf.

It was a dirty creature, soot covering it’s face and joints. It’s skin sagged, and Regina could count it’s ribs. Chucks of fur were missing, and it’s back was lined with scars. It lunged at Red, biting and scratching. “No!” Regina let the arrow fly, piercing the shoulder of the beast. It howled, turning it’s attention onto Regina.

The arrow she had reached for got caught in her quiver, making herself vulnerable as she tried to pull it out. She gave up on her arrow, instead using her bow to swat at the beast. She didn’t want to kill it, it was possible the human inside the wolf’s furs was able to be saved. Red stepped in front of her, clamping her teeth down on the grey wolf’s throat, trying to get it to submit. It struggled, thrashing about trying to free itself, until going limp. Red released the wolf, gently laying it's unconscious body on the ground. Regina took the hood off her shoulders, and laid it over the grey wolf. There was a loud moan as the wolf transformed into a thin, pale man. Though his wounds were gone, he was still out cold, his breathing shallow. It was Quinn, shivering and naked under the thick hood. Red pushed his side with her nose, looking like a lost dog as she attempted to rouse him. Her large yellow eyes bore into Regina with such sadness and pain. Red thought she had lost her pack, but her was one of her own, broken and bleeding at her feet, twisted into something he would hate.

There was a _TWISH_ as several arrows sailed through the air. Three hit Red in the back, one embedded into her side. She fell, placing her body over Quinn's. Regina pulled her dagger, throwing it at one of the archers, hitting him in the stomach.

Regina drew the hood off her shoulders and over Red’s, the wolf transforming back. She grabbed her bloodied hand. “We need to go, now.”

They ran. Ran faster than Regina thought they could, back to their safehouse, Red crying all the way, “I could’ve saved him.”


End file.
